


Ghosts Disappear When You Look Directly At Them

by yuletide_archivist



Category: The Wicked Years Series - Gregory Maguire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-12-22
Updated: 2004-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-25 03:37:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1629452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Glinda is never entirely sure whether Elphaba is real or not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ghosts Disappear When You Look Directly At Them

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Caitrin Torres

 

 

Glinda remembers when winter in the Emerald City was magical. She remembers visiting with her family when she was just a little girl, and her father laughing at her as she tried to catch snowflakes on her tongue. She remembers how beautiful the crystalline flakes looked against all the green, and how red everyone's cheeks were, even the Animals.

Now she's just cold. And there aren't any Animals anymore, only rail-thin beasts of burden trudging through snow that's half-melted and gray. Snow never seems pure white anymore; it seems to fall out of the sky as slush already, mixed with asphault and dirt before it even hits the ground.

Glinda wraps her cloak tighter around her shoulders and ignores the beggars on the street next to her doorway. She unlocks the door and steps inside, marveling again at how hideously empty the house feels.

The wind whispers something as the door swings shut, and Glinda strains to hear what, but can't quite make out the words.

***

It's been 451 days, seventy-five weeks. Since the funeral, since the death, since Dorothy... Glinda can't even remember clearly anymore.

***

"I'm dreaming, aren't I?"

Elphaba sniffs derisively. "How should I know? If you believe what the philosophers say, I'm just a representation of some part of your psyche."

"Oh, come now, Elphie; you've never believed that hogswallop."

"Like I said, it doesn't matter what I believe; it matters what you believe."

They're drinking tea together in a floral garden, a situation which is ridiculous enough in and of itself for Glinda to immediately recognize it as a dream. Never mind that this woman is dead, has been dead for years, or maybe just months.

Elphaba sits back in her chair, arching one eyebrow. "I must say I'm disappointed in you, Glinda. I would have hoped you to marry someone of a higher position. Only a baronet?"

Glinda blushes. No use telling herself that this isn't real; it feels more concrete than anything that's happened in the past year. "I'm happy with where I am. Sir Chuffrey is quite kind to me."

Elphaba snorts rudely. "Oh yes, and that's what all of us want from an ideal marriage: for our mate to be `quite kind.' How nice. How perfectly lovely."

"I don't need your permission to marry whom I please!" Her voice is too shrill, and she can see smug triumph in Elphaba's eyes; she's already got Glinda riled up. "Besides, Chuffrey's position was most useful during the Wizard's reign; had we been any closer to the throne, our actions would have been watched much more carefully."

Elphaba glares. "Your `actions'? What, so you were actually a brave, cunning revolutionary during the Wizard's reign, and I just failed to notice?"

"Would you have noticed anything I did?"

Elphaba ignores the whine in Glinda's voice and sips her tea delicately, ladylike.

Glinda is trembling with anger. "You *left,* Elphaba. I would have done anything, I would have come with you-"

"And what? Sit quietly while I went about the business of taking down the Wizard's regime? Or risk your life for my sake?" Elphaba shakes her head, placing the cup back down on the table. "That wasn't your life, Glinda."

"It could have been."

Glinda wakes up still with Elphaba's laughter ringing in her ears.

***

It's a few weeks before Glinda notices the smell. The scent of earth, of musk, of plant life grimly persevering in the face of stone and manufactured palaces. The maid throws out every house plant, every green living thing in the house, yet the smell still persists.

The cellar. It's coming from below.

Glinda has to stoop to get through the doorway, and when she reaches the bottom of the stairs the top of her head brushes the cobweb-covered ceiling.

Moss. Green moss, spreading over the floor, coating all the furniture and whatnot in storage, making everything smell like plant life, like *green.*

Glinda discovered long ago that colors had scents, and that green was the strongest of all.

She bends, brushing her (gloved, the finest lace) finger against the moss coating the stone floor. (Her childhood home had a floor of packed dirt; they were rich enough to build a beautiful house, but not rich enough to let the facade continue where guests couldn't see.) It's not impossible, that this much moss could grow all the way down here; it's a persistent plant, always insisting on growing in the harshest of climates. Merely improbable.

Merely...

Glinda shivers, and the air slides against her like a message.

***

85 weeks after the funeral, and Glinda can feel her in her bedroom when she undresses.

It's not... she's not *real.* Glinda doesn't know how much is a memory, her own mind, and how much is something outside of that, and she doesn't particularly want to. Elphaba is always intangible, abstract enough so that Glinda's never sure whether or not she's really there.

It's almost reminiscent of their school days, actually.

Glinda takes her time slipping off her (green, her entire outfit is green) shawl, letting it drop to the floor beside her bed. Next come the gloves, satin and silk sliding off each finger and placed on the nightstand. She unlaces her gown, and as the fabric slips past her shoulders she can *feel* it, her, feel an almost-solid wind brush her skin, caressing her collarbones, cupping her breasts.

Glinda blinks and she's lying naked on the sheets, and the room is full of that same presence, wind, air, *Elphaba.* She feels her legs part for nothing, and feels nothing twist her nipples, and feels nothing swallow her moans in a kiss.

She arches up and feels the nothing (ghost, spirit, witch) slide beneath her, slide around her, wrap her in its arms, and it shouldn't be comforting. It shouldn't make tears prick at Glinda's eyes, it shouldn't make her turn her face and rub her cheek against the pillow like it's Elphaba. Elphie.

The Wicked Witch of the West.

Glinda never questioned the propaganda because she knew it wasn't worth it. She knew exactly what the outcome would be.

She closes her eyes, and drifts to sleep listening to Elphaba's raspy voice whispering in her ear.

***

"How long are you going to keep this up, Elphaba?" Glinda knows she's dreaming because Elphaba is absolutely solid in front of her, and they're drinking tea. (Jasmine.)

Elphaba sighs, annoyed. "Haven't I *told* you that's not *up* to me?"

"I don't believe you."

Elphaba bares her teeth in some perverse parody of a smile. "That's the fun of it."

"You're getting more witchy and horrible by the day, you know."

Elphaba hacks wetly, pounding her fist against her chest. "I'm old, I'm decrepid. You ought to be kinder to the elderly."

Glinda pinches the bridge of her nose. It's positively inhumane that she's able to get a headache while *dreaming.* "Pish-tosh, Elphaba. You're no older than I."

A green, weathered hand reaches across the tea-table to cover hers, and Glinda realizes she's shaking. "I'm rotting in a grave, sweetheart. There's the difference."

"I can't believe you're *haunting* me!" Glinda cries out, and her voice is too shrill. As usual. "I can't believe--Elphie, how *cliche!*"

Elphaba just rolls her eyes and sits back. "How typical, you're surrenduring to hysterics. You'd better wake up to kiss your husband goodbye, poppet." She snaps her fingers and everything goes black."

***

"You're not really dead, are you?" They're lying on the bed, curled against each other like lovers (like schoolgirls). Glinda couldn't say whether or not she's dreaming, and Elphaba keeps slipping between solid and intangible.

"Don't be ridiculous. You've *seen* what's left of me. I'm deader than the chicken you roasted for dinner."

"Don't patronize me," Glinda snaps. "Come on, Elphie, we both know that if *anyone* could escape death it would be *you.*"

Elphaba combs Glinda's hair with her long, spindly fingers, and her eyes are bemused. "Would be. Wasn't."

"You whore," Glinda says, and tears are streaming down her cheeks before she can stop herself.

"Shush." Another green spindly finger presses against her lips. "I'm here, aren't I?"

 


End file.
